The Swallows Are Gone

The swallows are gone.

Because of their going

Air has changed 

And become empty.

Stillness under the sky

Grows in the evening

Like puzzled silence 

Above the late fields.

Birds of the posts and wires

Conjugate their ignorance,

Selfishly stocktake their

Stubborn remnants.

The blue at sunset

Shades to orange

Through low cloud

With sky green behind.

The wind is alone

The sleek swallow dive

No longer rides it

Nor carves it into eddies.

Hollow sky fades away

To a deeper barren night;

Orion is seen above the foothills

Before morning.

Dawn rises, surprised by absence,
But the sun shines 

With no memory of swallows 

Nor any days before they came.

© BH 2015

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Came home and they were gone. I really did feel something was missing. Small things, swallows, but they mark the season. Without them you feel the mist hanging longer on the hills and night riding downslope through it. Dark and piercing, full of stars.